THE STRUGGLE FOR IRAQ: THE COURTS-MARTIAL; ACCUSED G.I.'S TRY TO SHIFT BLAME IN PRISON ABUSE

Six of the defendants in the Abu Ghraib abuse case once all bunked together in a tent in Baghdad. But as the most important military prosecutions since Vietnam unfold, each soldier is struggling alone to explain away seemingly irrefutable evidence captured in frame after frame of disturbing images, and they are pointing fingers at one another, minimizing their roles and blaming the government.

One defendant, Specialist Megan M. Ambuhl, says she was merely a bystander who treated the Iraqi detainees kindly, giving them copies of the Koran and making sure their meals contained no pork.

The defendants' challenge is to convince military courts that the pictures of abusive treatment of Iraqi detainees, which have generated a storm of criticism, do not begin to tell the whole story. Each has a personal version of events but one theme unites them: they contend they were following orders. [Page 16.]

As that defense is presented at their courts-martial, the central question of Abu Ghraib -- whether what happened there was aberration or policy -- will become crucial.

''We intend to put the military on trial for their breakdown in leadership, structure, guidance, policy,'' Mr. Bergrin said. The proceedings will begin this week, when Specialist Sivits is expected to plead guilty in exchange for leniency, and then testify against other defendants.

But the most immediate task for the other accused soldiers is proving that they were doing what their superiors wanted. ''Our defense says he was following orders and that he believed the orders were lawful,'' said Guy L. Womack, a lawyer for Specialist Graner.

Last week, some of the defendants said that even the most shocking conduct shown in images were the result of direct orders. ''I was instructed by persons in higher ranks to stand there and hold this leash,'' one defendant, Pfc. Lynndie R. England, said in an interview with a Denver television station. Private England is shown in one photo leading a naked prisoner on a tether.

The lawyers say they will rely on findings of the military's own investigation, by Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba of the Army, which found that military commanders, eager to extract more information from detainees, used guards to set conditions for ''successful interrogations.''

In practice, the lawyers said, that policy translated into instructions that the guards ''soften up'' detainees before questioning.

But Mr. Womack conceded that the orders Specialist Graner would cite in his defense were often general. ''Most are not specific,'' he said. ''Some are pretty clear. The exact wording, it's hard to say.''

In a statement to investigators 10 days ago, Private England was also hazy about who told her what tactics to use. ''Did anyone ever give specific orders on how to 'break' the detainees?'' she was asked, according to a copy of her sworn statement obtained by The New York Times. ''No,'' she replied, but added that military intelligence ''would tell us to keep it up, that we were doing a good job.'' She pointed out four military intelligence soldiers in photographs of detainees held on leashes in a prison corridor.

Rose Mary Zapor, who represents Private England, said the very fact that two women, Private England and Specialist Ambuhl, were present suggested that the abuse was ordered as part of an interrogation strategy. ''We have been informed that these pictures were being used by military intelligence and were to be used because these are Muslim men, and the ultimate humiliation was to be naked in the presence of women,'' she said.

But even proof that they were operating under direct orders might not be enough to clear them.

On the one hand, the military's manual for courts-martial says orders requiring the performance of ''a military duty or act'' are lawful and are ''disobeyed at the peril of the subordinate.'' On the other, it says this ''does not apply to a patently illegal order, such as one that directs the commission of a crime.'' A lawful order must ''be a specific mandate to do or not do a specific act.'' Rather than a regulation or policy, such an order ''must be directed specifically to the subordinate.''

Neal A. Puckett, a lawyer for Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, who was the brigade commander of the military police at Abu Ghraib, said the defendants would not easily prove they were ordered to engage in some of the abuse. ''I think they are going to have a hard time demonstrating that they were instructed that they were specifically to strip these guys naked and pile them up on the floor,'' Mr. Puckett said.

But Harvey J. Volzer, a lawyer for Specialist Ambuhl, said the ''following orders'' defense should work in this case. ''It's not like we're using the Holocaust excuse: we followed orders,'' he said. ''This isn't that bad.''

Prosecutors have already presented evidence contending the defendants acted on their own.

According to court records, several witnesses have testified in pretrial hearings that military intelligence officers might have authorized or ordered some harsh behavior, like depriving detainees of sleep or food, intimidating them with dogs or pouring water over them.

But, the witnesses continued, the officers would never have called for the things the soldiers are charged with: hitting detainees, piling their naked bodies in human pyramids, photographing them, having them pose as if performing oral sex and forcing them to masturbate.

''If I were ordered to do these acts, I would not carry them out,'' Warrant Officer Edward J. Rivas, who worked in the interrogation unit at Abu Ghraib, testified at the preliminary hearing for Specialist Ambuhl. She is charged with conspiracy and dereliction of duty but has not been implicated in the most serious abuse.

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Special Agent Tyler Pieron, a Army investigator who also testified at the hearing, concluded: ''There was absolutely no evidence that the military intelligence or military police chain of command authorized any of this kind of maltreatment. These individuals wanted to do this for fun.''

While prosecutors are likely to argue that the guards were out of control, the defendants will say that the entire prison was chaos. ''Keep in mind,'' said Mr. Womack, ''these were the baddest of the bad in this area of the prison. They were criminals. Some were suspected terrorists. There was violence against the guards.''

Defense lawyers said they would try to show that their clients were honorable people struggling to do their jobs under dire conditions and ill-defined boundaries. Sergeant Davis, for instance, had received no schooling whatsoever in prison work, his lawyer, Mr. Bergrin, said. He volunteered for duty in Iraq. His first task at the prison was to help kill the rabid dogs that attacked the soldiers and chewed on body parts the dogs dug up. Mr. Bergrin said Sergeant Davis worked 13 months without a day off and often could not sleep because of the rocket-propelled grenade attacks on the prison. He went four months without being able to contact his family.

The cases against the soldiers -- there are now seven charged -- are each quite different, and that has caused some of the defendants to turn on one another. The women say they were little more than bystanders. Specialist Sivits, who is expected to plead guilty, is charged with taking a picture of the scene. Sergeant Davis is accused of jumping onto a pile of naked detainees, of stomping ''on the hands and feet of several detainees with his shod foot,'' but not of conduct involving sexual humiliation, according to court papers.

The two remaining defendants, Specialist Graner and Sergeant Frederick, are charged with the worst conduct, including placing naked detainees in a human pyramid and photographing them, ordering them to masturbate, placing them in sexual positions and ordering them to strike each other. They are also accused of hitting detainees so hard they required medical attention.

In sworn statements provided to investigators, Specialist Sivits attributes the most serious abuse to others.

''He says he was an onlooker and didn't participate in anything that raised moral issues,'' said Mr. Bergrin, Sergeant Davis's lawyer, ''and we know for a fact that he was participating in numerous such incidents.''

Two weeks ago, Specialist Sivits abruptly left the tent in Baghdad he had shared with five other defendants, scrawling a farewell note that said he was moving ''to benefit everyone.'' But he was moving mainly for his own benefit, going from bunkmate to witness against his compatriots in exchange for leniency, according to lawyers in the case. It is unclear how many of the defendants are still sharing the tent.

Specialist Sivits's lawyer, Stanley L. Martin, did not respond to several requests for comment.

Juries in courts-martial are made up of military personnel selected by the commanding officer, and defense lawyers disagree about whether juries in Baghdad or the United States are likely to be more sympathetic to their clients.

''We want the trial in Iraq,'' Mr. Womack said. ''We want Army officers who are combat veterans who work with the intel community every day and know the tactics and pressures involved.''

Mr. Bergrin disagreed. ''We will shoot for change of venue,'' he said. ''We don't believe we can get a fair trial in Iraq. We want to bring this to the American people.''

Wherever the trials are held, defense lawyers say they will argue that their clients' conduct was not extreme. For this they will rely on the military's standard approval of interrogation techniques for detainees, which are codified in Army manuals.

With approval from top commanders, for example, interrogators were allowed to deprive detainees of sleep and food. (Most of these coercive measures were banned Friday by the military command in Iraq.)

''We will have an expert witness testify about interrogation techniques,'' Mr. Womack said, ''and these are not techniques that exceed the norm, having people stand around naked.''

In a sworn statement, Specialist Sivits described seeing Specialist Graner strike a naked detainee who had an empty sandbag over his head. ''Graner punched the detainee with a closed fist so hard in the temple that it knocked the detainee unconscious,'' Specialist Sivits said.

Mr. Womack, Specialist Graner's lawyer, said he doubted the incident took place and questioned Specialist Sivits's veracity. If it happened, he said, his client had been ordered to strike the detainee. And, in any event, a certain amount of violence was to be expected, Mr. Womack said.

''Striking doesn't mean a lot,'' he added. ''Breaking a rib or a bone, that would be excessive.''

Mr. Volzer, the lawyer for Specialist Ambuhl, said what took place at Abu Ghraib was intimidation, not torture. ''I wouldn't term it abuse,'' he said.

In defending against the charge that Sergeant Davis stomped on a detainee's feet, his lawyer, Mr. Bergrin, said he would make the case that the prisoner was not hurt.